Identifying The "Victim"

My latest reporting shift at KOMU was marked by a discussion between some faculty members that, in various forms, has long divided journalists and spoken volumes about the news judgment of a news organization:  identifying someone who becomes news involuntarily — a "victim."

I use the quotes because the term victim necessarily implies or suggests involvement in a crime, which doesn't always do justice to the situation.  The greater reality I was dealing with was an issue of privacy, not an issue of public safety:  to what degree does this "victim" deserve to remain anonymous for their involvement in a story that, if reported fully, would serve the public good?  (As a side note, I want to keep the specifics of my reporting process off this blog, to keep it out of the public record for now)

There are several reasons I side with those who say to leave "victims" completely anonymous (as as completely anonymous as possible):

First, I think newsworthiness is something of a verb:  You have to do something newsworthy to be a stand-alone newsworthy figure.  If you become a part of a story of interest to the public, a journalist really needs that person's consent to be used as a story.

Second, at the point where a person has consented to be identified, the journalist has a duty to tell that person's story, not just reveal that person's name.  That's what's so egregious to me about revealing the identities of victims of violent crimes:  beyond the safety concerns of the person being blatantly disregarded, the identification is often cursory and matter-of-fact ('Jane Doe' was mugged by 'John Smith' on Main Street this morning, etc.) and does no justice to that person's story.  If we can't tell the victim's story, I would fight against their identification in my story.

Third, and most practically, identifying someone exposes them in the press, and makes them less likely to talk and tell their aforementioned story.  Their story is more important than the short-term benefit gained by simple identification.

Really?

My initial reaction — Seriously?  What is this? ...

I was horrified.  That reporter just shot a story about a cardboard bear.  And a man in a bunny suit.  The first thing I did was laugh, but soon the hilarity of it passed.  The next thing I thought: This is every stereotype about bad TV news.  Every single one, wrapped into one story.  Start with a bad standup and shameless staging.  And if it's a farce, it's poorly done — no laugh moments, no crafty camera angles, nothing.  Just pure, grade-A crap.  I have little doubt there are many others who share this.

But then I took a step back, and from my limited time working in a newsroom, I applied some of my own experiences to the reporter's situation.  Let me make a couple of assumptions.  They might not all hold true, but I'm making an informed guess [at least somewhat-informed from my limited time in news]:  (A) It was a weekend.  There was nothing else going on.  (B) He was told by his assignment desk or producer to cover the story and was told to do his best with limited video.  (C) He got to the scene to get some video, and found he couldn't weave a story about a bear around a bear that wasn't there.  But when the source from the Cleveland parks naturalist showed up and said 'Oh, I have a cardboard bear here that we can shoot the interview with,' he, in his desperation, saw an opportunity to insert visuals into his story.  He missed an opportunity, not only for crafty visual storytelling, but for multimedia reporting and a convergence package that would've made the story more relevant.

And here's the point where the reporter got ground up in the gears of the machinery that drives TV news.  Consultants tell TV journalists to create "video gravy trains" to roll during newscasts — we have to have visual opportunities in our stories if we have any prayer to keep audiences engaged.  And we should!  Roll video, graphics, maps, anything that's visual and grabs attention!  But the line between going the extra mile to get storytelling visuals and sloppy theatrics is very clear — a very fine line, yes, but it's clear.  This reporter took a lazy way out.

From that thought, I have two main observations:

First, there were ways around the lack of visuals here for the reporter:  He digs as hard as he can for video of the bear from anyone that will let him take video — from wire services, from National Geographic, from the local zoo.  He does a standup that explains where the homeowner saw the bear, maybe a walkthrough, or something to give dimension and context to the backyard of the space we're talking about.  That, plus clever, crafty writing ought to be enough — I once saw a story from a WFLA-TV reporter sent to cover a fight at a nursing home, but was denied entry to the facility.  The story won awards because of clever writing wrapped around a lengthy standup and some crafty camerawork.

But that leads me to my second observation, which I see as an existential problem in TV news:  Relevant or important news isn't always visual.  The reporter covering the bear story was covering a newsworthy event — bears on the loose may be a public hazard, or a cause of public concern.  Journalists have a duty to relay information about the animals to inform the public about the potential dangers.  But I can see a less-gutsy reporter (or more visual-hungry producer or assignment editor) passing on this story for a lack of visuals.  It's one thing when we're talking about a bear in someone's backyard:  Would that same producer back away from a story about the budget or political corruption because that story doesn't put video on the "video gravy train?"

If television news organizations shy away from non-visual stories, or gravitate towards non-visual stories that are easily staged (like this bear story), they will slide quickly down a slippery slope to irrelevance.  A story about an imploding building, despite all the great visuals and sound that come with it, doesn't tell people in this country how they're going to pay for K-12 education in 10 years.  A story about a bear in someone's backyard doesn't gain relevance with a viewer because they can visually associate the cardboard cutout of Ursa Major with a real bear (they know what the bear looks like).  We can't wait for visuals for stories to become important, and even if we can't find the visuals, it doesn't mean we shouldn't report on them...

We should report on them, not to the detriment of the video gravy train — you can find ways around a lack of visuals.  Maybe it involves changing the angle of your video piece.  And here's where convergence comes in:  You change the angle of your video piece to make a non-visual newsworthy occurrence into a news hook that leads you into an exploration of a broader issue.  Your online text element becomes the nuts and bolts of the news hook itself.  Your non-visual story just became relevant on two platforms:  For example, with this bear piece, the reporter might make their video piece into a discussion about how to stay safe from animals that may wander into your neighborhood, or what to do if you encounter a bear, or whether or not we ought to be concerned about bears in residential areas — and the online text piece can be about the nuts and bolts of the bear scare. 

It's easy to Monday-morning-quarterback this story, and Lord knows I might not be able to deliver on this with this story.  But TV news reporters have to start thinking about stories like this, because it's too easy to look at stories like the bear story and completely write off TV news as a relevant journalistic medium.  I don't believe that — its credibility is not beyond repair.  But we won't be relevant again unless we start approaching news situations in completely different ways.

Mitigating "The Trade-Off"

One of my major goals as a convergence reporter is to give as much credence to my web elements as I do to my on-air elements.  While I have been trying to hone my on-air presentation skills, I think my focus has drifted somewhat from my online presentation — I made a conscious trade-off to work on my on-air elements, and focus on the web story later.  But my long-term career goal is to find a way to eliminate this trade-off:  To make solid reporting for broadcast and for online presentation go hand-in-hand; to mitigate this trade-off to the point where I can still tell a good story in both broadcast and online form without much conscious effort devoted to one element over another.

My package this week was successful in mitigating the trade-off in some ways.  I feel, in terms of the facts and content information, I achieved a very good balance and turned in a project that gets to the heart of what convergence is:  Use the best platforms to tell your story.  Here's how I used my different elements this week:

• Video Version:  I told the story of ABC Laboratories, and used it as a focal point to tell the story of Columbia's economic recovery in the midst of a recession.
• Online Text Version:  I focused on the economic forecast:  Columbia's recession, measured in terms of unemployment, may be near its end.  I featured the president of the chamber of commerce, who was largely removed from the broadcast version for time reasons, with a lot of the good foundational quotes that he gave.  (In hindsight, his interview might have worked very well as a video extra).
• Interactive Map:  I told the broader story of the state's emergence from the recession, using the economic forecast data to make an interactive map.

I did tease the interactive map in my video story, but I could increase cohesion between the content by trying to tease the map at the end of my online text version, and letting readers know that a bigger-picture version of the story was available in text on KOMU.com.

There is a lot of room for improvement, however:  While I found a very good balance in converging content, I think the quality of one element in particular — the video piece — suffered as a result of my focus being divided among three different elements.  It had strong content, but didn't have strong broadcast flow.  I didn't think I would need a standup (and still would not want to use one anyway, as I didn't really have anything to show), but I needed something to break up the visuals of the piece, which felt stagnant at times.  My ND suggested against using graphics, which I had planned on doing in concept (and was part of the reason I decided against a standup).  But looking at the script with him, I decided against it as well.  I just knew there would be a large gap of 30 seconds in the middle of the piece, between bytes, that would be just my VO track.  That's one way I can look to improve in the future, and it's one thing about this story that will always bug me.

But I have to see the glass as half-full here.  I feel I obtained, in a dayturn story, the balance of content needed in a strong convergence package.  Each element stands on its own as a newsworthy piece, when linked to the main story.  And while I need to ensure that I'm not making the trade-off of quality for balance of content, I think this piece is stronger because of variety of elements that, together, tell a complete story.

PBS Sets Bar for Interactive Journalism

I've long been convinced that PBS's regular documentary series Frontline is the best source in the United States for long-form video journalism.  They're always in-depth, always on the cutting edge, and very good at explaining complex, but timely issues — such as healthcare and the Iraq War — in an understandable way.  The series has also won DuPont batons for its investigative work — like this 2003 story on violations of workers' rights in iron foundries.

However, until recently, this cutting-edge series was relegated to the same old small boxes that literally define the boundaries of online video news (I feel like there's an instructive metaphor for, or parallel to, a television-to-online paradigm shift there too... but I digress).  I've always found that this is incredibly confining, especially when the video players do not allow for the viewer to maximize the video to full screen.  The example here is about 6 years old, and Frontline did adopt a video screen that allowed the viewer to expand the video's size.  However, this new Flash-based player was not conducive to allowing viewers to pause the video to view the extra elements to a story.  But now, the brilliant folks on Frontline's web team have whipped up a video player that I think finally starts doing justice to the potential of online journalism.

When a viewer opens up the story from Frontline's main page, they see this video player:

Unfortunately, my screenshots don't really do justice to the player, but I'll try and talk you through the features of the player.  The main featured video is on the left half of the screen, and a scrolling list of extras (links, videos, documents) that are accessible without losing your place on the playing video.  If you want to access an extra during the main feature...

...that extra will expand over your main feature and play.  What an opportunity to smoothly integrate longer sound bytes that don't fit into a video package into your story without inconveniencing an engaged viewer!

And as an added bonus...

...an expandable timeline that helps the viewer track their position through a complex story.

What I find even more impressive was that this player is not only used for special features — but is now the standard template for every single story.  The bar has been raised for the presentation of online journalism.  Now, I think the fair question to be posed to local news affiliates is, 'How can you meet this new high bar?'  Perhaps timelines aren't necessary on every story, perhaps video extras aren't always merited.  But local news affiliates must do their utmost to emulate newer forms of presenting their material if they hope to take full advantage of the Internet's possibilities, and finally jump out of the boxes that confine them. 

Lost, Then Found: Getting Something Out Of A VO Patrol Gone Awry

I'll start this post with the end of a day's efforts:

At the beginning of the VO Patrol shift, I pitched three different story ideas.  None of them worked out.  I talked with my producer and she suggested another story, but when I went to the location and to the offices, I found both locked.  Down on my luck, I returned to the station at about 4 p.m., and then saw this story on the wire about Columbia Police errors essentially causing courts to throw out (or potentially throw out) more than 100 cases against local businesses who sold alcohol to minors.

I called the city prosecutor, who couldn't talk on camera because she had to leave the office early to pick up her car from the mechanic.  But luckily, she gave me about 10 minutes on the phone, and she helped talk me through the story and fill in the information gaps from the AP copy.  With that, I set out, the producers having given up on me for the 5 and 6 newscasts (they understood, they knew I was working hard), looking to put together something for the 10.

After two local liquor stores turned me down, I remembered that the city prosecutor had mentioned that bars and restaurants had been involved in some of the cases.  So I tried the first bar I could think of:  Bengals.  I talked with the owner for about 15 minutes about her multiple beefs with the police, and then interviewed her on camera.  I had a VO Patrol.

The story probably deserved to be packaged, but without a police or city source on camera, it wouldn't fly as a full-blown story.  The producers and I agreed that putting me onset helps me represent the voice of the city prosecutor, the interview that I couldn't get on camera, to the viewers.  We used vidsqueeze graphics to combine video with a list of relevant facts about the story.  It was a long, strenuous, but in the end, a very rewarding shift.

Blogging 'Inside the Obama White House'

When does life inside the White House constitute news?  And how does the two-hour-long, two-part, television special, produced by one of the most forceful news departments in the country, measure up to newsworthy standards?

(As I finish that sentence, Brian Williams delivers a quote that I think pricelessly sums up my answer:  "What happens when the President wants a burger?" posits Brian Williams.  He pauses.  "And it's halfway across town."  Oye vey.)

I would guess I'm not the only person looking at this special through journalistic eyes at this media event (playing out both on air and online) with a healthy degree of skepticism.  On one hand, I do see the news value in breaking into the heavily-guarded fortress whose walls the media works so desperately to try and breech 24/7/365.  NBC has done this before — their Inside the White House specials, in one form or another, go back to the Kennedy administration.  And Newsweek's inside accounts of the 2008 presidential campaign — for which reporters promised strict confidentiality and gave up their rights to work with their newsrooms during the campaign — was hailed as a triumph of election journalism that so often gets mired in tracking of polls and campaign movements.

("What do you think of the depictions of you — Saturday Night Live [shameless plug!] and Fred Armisen?" asks Williams.  Again, oye.  I know I'm cherrypicking, but the timing of these bytes as I write this is just perfect.)

But the skeptic in me watches the special and sees a television production orchestrated by MTV, not a news special executed by journalists.  Unlike the Newsweek stories, which essentially rehashed previous stories with high news value from a new, unique perspective, there is no newsworthy story to rehash here.

Example:  the Robert Gibbs segment, demonstrating how his power as the mouthpiece of the White House doesn't nearly measure up to the President's power to sway the media conversation — a cool perspective, without a doubt.  But Obama wasn't announcing his pick for a Vice Presidential candidate (as was detailed in the Newsweek accounts) — he wasn't even announcing his pick for Supreme Court Justice.  The Obama administration simply prepared a response to criticism of some comments made by his nominee, Sonia Sotomayor.  The segment suggested Obama's voice was much more persuasive in the media conversation than were senior Obama advisor David Axelrod's and Gibbs' voices.

The fact that the president has strong sway over the national dialogue is not news.  Period.  And we don't need news division cameras — or journalists (like Brian Williams) to prove that point!

What I find praiseworthy about the NBC News team's visit (through what I've seen thus far) is that at least they did have the good sense to ask time-sensitive questions about the Sotomayor nomination (which they used on Nightly News the night they were said).  Brian Williams also sat down for a formal interview with the president and promises they discussed a broad range of hard-hitting questions — that's coming up on tomorrow's episode.

But it feels like access to the White House, even for a few days, may not be enough to gather enough news to be considered newsworthy.  Perhaps if cameras had been allowed to roll in high-level meetings, things might be different.  Instead, the lasting visual in my head is of chief of staff Rahm Emmanuel waving bye-bye as an ornate wooden door closes in my face.

The location of a story or the players alone do not make a story newsworthy — and what newsworthy profiling of the players involved was nothing new in-and-of itself (We all know Rahm Emmanuel was fast-tracked for something other than chief-of-staff in the White House and that he swears a lot — it's been widely reported on).  We as journalists need to do a better job of understanding the degree to which we play into the calculus of politics.  We may have done these types of profiles since the Kennedy years, but that does not mean we cannot exercise modern news judgment on situations like this.  We cannot let our guard down when we're allowed access into El Dorado, even if there is no news to cover there.